cross-posted from: https://slrpnk.net/post/10713443
For denial doesn’t only amount to rejecting the evidence, he argues – it also consists of denying our role in the climate crisis; absolving ourselves through “carbon offsets, hybrid cars, local purchases, recycling”. And in this, far more of us are implicated.
In some ways, this argument might not seem all that new. Multiple authors have pointed out that green capitalism, not rightwing deniers of the crisis, is our greatest obstacle to properly confronting the problem. DeLay agrees. The difference is the lens he brings to it – using psychoanalysis to explain the mechanisms behind denial.
Oh fuck right the hell off with this despairist shit.
The fossil fuel companies want this kind of sentiment to be the mainstream because the logical conclusion is “so then why bother doing anything?”
They want your despair, they want your hopelessness, they want your burnout, you owe it to the world to not let them have it.
No, they want you to keep voting for milquetoast centrist liberal policies that don’t hurt their bottom line. Car companies and oil companies love that the “left” party in the US only supports pro-car policies that maintain our reliance on them. Every polluting company absolutely loves the tax credit non-solution because it will cost them much less than an actual emissions-reducing solution. Plastic companies love that there is no widespread plastic ban or mandatory reduction in plastic use by manufacturers, and instead only consumer-aimed recycling programs.
Fossil fuel companies absolutely love your defeatist “don’t let perfect be the enemy of good” attitude. They love these policies that make you feel like you are doing something but don’t actually change anything. They love when you tell people who want actual solutions that they need to vote for the compromise. They still get to keep their profits going strong, and the Earth will only burn after the people pushing these policies are long dead.
< gonna be real quiet when the even worse option does even worse stuff because they didn’t vote because “mIlQuEtOaSt!” and “rEaL sOlUtIoNs!”
Almost none of what you said is a counterargument or even separate from what I said, you just phrased it like a takedown because the idea that this movement not give in to fatalism and cynicism pisses you off for some reason so you need to make it about letting the Right win and institute mandatory coal rolling quotas is uber l337 based praxis or some shit because “bUt DeMs BaD tOo!”
“Man I know how I’ll address the climate crisis in 2000, vote for Ralph Nader! Surely letting Bush win won’t have disastrous consequences for the entire world!”, that’s what you just tried to shoehorn in here, “surely project 2025 won’t be that bad!”
That is a bet only someone who has no right to be deciding could consider making.
al gore won that election, but votes didn’t decide the winner. don’t blame greens, blame the people who have had power for 100 years and shepherded us into this situation.